The below video, produced by Josh Mumbi, the same person who produced the video on the mysterious life of Cyrus Scofield, posted previously, explores the history of Dispensationalism.
He begins by noting that the modern state of Israel, a Jewish ethno-state founded in 1948, is not the Israel of the Bible. Biblical Israel is divided into two phases: carnal Israel and Spiritual Israel. Anyone who claims Jesus Christ as their Savior is part of Spiritual Israel. Carnal Israel can be further divided into the twelve tribes of Israel, which were destroyed in 721 BC, and Judah, the last tribe, which persisted for another seven centuries, but whose probation ran out in 34 AD.
Israel in the Promised Land
The promises to biblical Israel were fulfilled. They were given the promised land, and they lived in that land for over six centuries. The Book of Joshua is almost entirely a description of the battles fought and the territory won for, and assigned to, each of the twelve tribes of Israel.
After Joshua completed the conquest of Canaan in around 1,380 BC, Israel was ruled by judges for about 350 years, give or take. During this time, the sanctuary was set up and functioning in Shiloh, about 20 miles north of Jerusalem, in the hill country of Israel. All of Israel dwelt in the promised land during the time of the judges with their religious ritual intact.
There were issues with Israel during the time of the judges, including idolatry (Judges 10:6), gross immorality (Judges 19), and civil war among the tribes (Judges 20). Every generation or two, God would allow Israel’s neighbors, e.g., the Philistines, to conquer them and rule over them until they repented of their idolatry and returned to the Lord. (Judges 10:6-16) But the period of the Judges should nevertheless be included in the time in which the twelve tribes of Israel lived in the land promised to Abraham.
In around 1050 BC, Saul was anointed Israel’s first king. The united kingdom continued through David and Solomon. David’s reign was marred by his great sins of adultery and murder which caused a civil war over succession; Solomon had many achievements, the greatest of which was to build a magnificent temple to replace the tabernacle, but the latter part of his reign was marred by foreign wives and high taxes. This united kingdom of Saul, David, and Solomon lasted 120 years, until around 930 BC.
Solomon’s son Rehoboam vowed to raise taxes, which were already too high after Solomon’s decadent phase (1 Kings 12:1-15); this enabled Jeroboam to wrest the northern 10 tribes away from Rehoboam, and inaugurated the divided kingdom. The divided kingdom lasted about two centuries, with the southern kingdom, consisting of Judah and Benjamin, having its seat in Jerusalem, and the northern kingdom having its seat in Samaria.
Because the temple, the center of the religious system, was in the southern kingdom, the northern kings erected golden bulls for worship at Bethel and Dan, and generally created a false, syncretistic religion, mixing elements of pagan fertility cults with true religion. The northern dynasty led Israel into ever greater apostasy until finally, in 721 AD, the Assyrians destroyed the northern Kingdom, scattering its people to the four winds.
From the beginning of the period of the judges until the ten tribes were lost to history was over 650 years. Israel had a very long run in the land promised to them. The Bible clearly states that carnal Israel received everything that was promised to Abraham on their behalf:
“And the Lord gave unto Israel all the land which he swore to give unto their fathers; and they possessed it, and dwelt therein.” Joshua 21:43
All the land that God had promised Abraham and his descendants was given to them; they possessed it and dwelt in it as long as they needed it. After 721 BC, carnal Israel, defined as the twelve flesh-and-blood tribes descended from the 12 sons of Jacob, no longer existed, so, obviously, they no longer needed the land.
What is the “river of Egypt”?
But what about Genesis 15:18?
“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates”
Some argue that this passage is describing all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates, but is that true? Please notice something very interesting in this text: the Euphrates is described as a great river and, indeed, it always has been, but the river in Egypt, alleged to be the Nile, is just described as a “river.” Do you see the problem? The Nile is an even greater river than the Euphrates! Why doesn’t the text reflect that? Because the phrase “river of Egypt” is not an accurate translation. Here is the correct translation:
“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates –”
A wadi is a dry river bed that becomes an active stream or river only in rainy seasons. No one would ever call the Nile a wadi. A popular commentary states:
The Wadi of Egypt, also known as the Brook of Egypt, is a significant geographical and historical term found in the Bible, often associated with the southern boundary of the Promised Land. In Hebrew, it is referred to as "Nachal Mitzrayim" (נַחַ מִצְרַיִם), which translates to "Brook of Egypt." This term is used to describe a seasonal riverbed or valley that marks the southwestern border of the land promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. See, Gen. 15:8; Num. 34:5; Joshua 15:4; 1 Kings 8:65
The southern boundary of Israel was the Wadi of Egypt; that boundary was not, and was never intended to be, the Nile. 1 Kings 8:65 tells us that, indeed, Solomon ruled from Lebanon down to the Wadi of Egypt: “So Solomon observed the festival at that time, and all Israel with him—a vast assembly, people from Lebo Hamath to the Wadi of Egypt.” And 1 Kings 4:21 tells us that Solomon, through client kingdoms, ruled all the way to the Euphrates River:
“And Solomon ruled over all the kingdoms from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt. These countries brought tribute and were Solomon’s subjects all his life.”
All the territorial promises made to Abraham and his descendants were fulfilled. All the land promised them was given them. Solomon ruled from the Euphrates to the “river of Egypt,” (meaning the Wadi of Egypt, the Brook of Egypt) which was the southern boundary of Israel. There is no ground for the supposition that some of the land promised to carnal Israel was not actually given them in Bible times. This has to be understood, or else one becomes vulnerable to the lies of the Jewish Zionists and their “Christian” Zionist enablers.
Israel Now A Spiritual Kingdom
With the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Israel became a spiritual kingdom consisting of all who believe in Jesus Christ. (Rom. 2:28-29; Gal. 6:14-16) Spiritual Israel is in the hearts of all believers, regardless where they are in the world (Eph. 2:11-22), hence Israel had no further use for a specific piece of real property. As Paul describes it:
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of His household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. Eph. 2:19-22
God’s promise to Abraham that “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3) could only be fulfilled through Jesus Christ and His church. It could only be fulfilled spiritually, never through any fleshly kingdom or nation. (Gal. 3:8)
The Jews in the Promised Land
Because a few of the southern kings, such as Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, and Josiah, were godly men and ruled in the fear and admonition of the Most High, the southern kingdom held on for another 135 years after the northern kingdom was destroyed. But in 586 BC, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon’s temple. Most of the people of the southern kingdom, Judah and Benjamin, were taken into captivity in Babylon.
The parable of the fig tree suggests that God the Father had had just about enough of the Jews at the time of the Babylonian captivity, but someone, perhaps His son, Jesus Christ, persuaded Him to extend Judah’s probation for another “year”:
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” Luke 13:6-9
We know from Daniel Nine that God, in his mercy, allowed the Jews another 490 prophetic “days”/literal years of probation. This period went from 457 BC to 34 AD.
After seventy years in Babylon, Judah was allowed to return to Jerusalem, and to rebuild Jerusalem in stages, but many had grown comfortable in Babylon, and remained there. Judah largely absorbed the much smaller tribe of Benjamin (although as late as the time of Christ, Paul traced his lineage to Benjamin. [Phil. 3:4-6]). When Judah returned to Jerusalem, their land was called “Judea” after Judah, consisting of just a small territory surrounding Jerusalem. The word “Jew” was derived from “Judea.”
I note this because John Hagee is shown saying just the opposite in the video:
“On the other side was the Jewish people, and out of the Jewish people came the twelve tribes, and the faith known as Judeo-Christianity.”
Hagee managed to get it exactly backward. The twelve tribes came first; the Jewish people, mostly of the tribe of Judah, were all that remained by the time of Christ. Carnal Israel had dwindled away to a faint shadow of its former self.
I started to write that there is no such religion as “Judeo-Christianity,” rather, there are Christianity and Judaism, two very different religions that have been at war since the time before Saul became Paul. But the garbage that John Hagee and many other American evangelicals preach is such a severe mutilation of biblical Christianity that we really ought to consider it a different religion, one that might well be called “Judeo-Christianity.”
Although the Jews were allowed to rebuild the temple, the Ark of the Covenant, the most important article of furniture in the temple, was never recovered after the Babylonian captivity. (I note this because the video shows a drawing of the ark of the covenant in connection with the building of the Second Temple.)
The Ark of the Covenant was a key element of the sanctuary/temple ritual; the lid of the ark was the mercy seat or atonement cover (Heb. 9:5), called in Greek the hilasterion (Rom. 3:25), which is translated as “propitiation,” “atonement,” or “atoning sacrifice.” When the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled on the hilasterion, it symbolized the blood of Jesus Christ, which accomplishes propitiation of sins, and atonement, for those of us who claim Him by faith.
Also, the prophetic voice was soon silenced. The last book of the Old Testament, Malachi, was completed by 420 BC, about a century after the return from Babylon. The remainder of the inter-testamental period, more than four centuries, was characterized by the Silence of the Prophets. This silence created a sense of anticipation and longing for the promised Messiah, who would restore Israel.
Jesus Restores Israel
Jesus did, in fact, restore Israel, but as a spiritual kingdom, not a carnal one. This is the meaning of Jesus’ statement to the woman at the well, in answer to her question about the location for worship:
“Yet a time is coming, and has now come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” John 4:23-24.
Physical Israel, Jerusalem, the temple mount, and the temple—these were all about to be swept away. Because after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they no longer matter. What matters is accepting Jesus as the Messiah, and worshiping Him spiritually and inwardly, in your heart. It does not matter where you gather with other Christians to worship outwardly. God’s kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. The Israel of God (Gal. 6:16) is spiritual Israel.
This is a tremendously liberating truth. Paul says, “where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” 2 Cor. 3:17. That verse is very familiar to us, but the context conveys a richer picture:
“We are not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so the people of Israel would not see the glory [on his face], even though it was destined to fade away. But the people’s minds were hardened, and to this day whenever the old covenant [the Old Testament] is being read, the same veil covers their [the Jews’] minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ. Yes, even today when they read Moses’ writings, their hearts are covered with that veil, and they do not understand [how Jesus is depicted in the Old Testament]. But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Cor. 13-17 NLT.
Paul says that even as he and the other apostles went into the synagogues and demonstrated to the Jews how the Hebrew Scriptures, their Scriptures, testified to Christ, it was like a veil covered the faces of the Jews, so that they could not see what was right in front of them! Only Christ could take that veil away.
The Need for Spiritual Continuity
The narrator makes a very insightful point that I’d never heard before. He argues that, because of the extreme corruption in the middle ages, Protestants have a need for spiritual continuity that cannot be met by the Catholic or Orthodox traditions. One particular line of Protestantism—the Puritans, the Plymouth Brethren, and finally the Scofield Bible American evangelicals—substituted the Jews for the Catholic Church:
“After the Reformation, which was when a large segment of Western Europe broke away from the Catholic Church, many Protestant theologians faced a challenge: how to ground their new religious tradition and establish continuity with biblical and apostolic faith, without relying on historical Catholic authority. Many Protestants increasingly began to look to Jews and their current culture, as representing a more direct line to their biblical roots.
And this tendency led to a crucial re-interpretation of Scripture. The reformers, and especially (sorry to beat a dead horse) the Puritans, instead of seeing the church as Israel, they began to conflate the Old Testament Israel with the contemporary Jews of their day.
This theological shift had profound implications. If the Jews were Israel, and Old Testament promises about restoration and reunification of Israel were to be taken literally rather than spiritually, logic demanded that the Jewish people must one day return to Palestine.
This marked a notable departure from the traditional Christian view, because if the Church is Israel, then all of the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Christ. But if, instead, the tribe of Judah, the Judeans, the Jews, if they were “Israel,” then the prophecies were still yet to come.
This belief became increasingly common among Puritan thinkers and leaders, notable figures like Jonathan Edwards, Increase and Cotton Mather, they all wrote about their belief in the supposed prophecies that the Jews would one day be restored to their ancestral homeland. However, this early Puritan belief in the Jewish restoration was different than what would later emerge. It wasn’t until much later that this would be systematized and become mainstream, and all this did not begin to happen until John Nelson Darby.
Again, I think this is very insightful observation. The question that immediately came to my mind was: How did the Seventh-day Adventist Church, perhaps the most Protestant of all Protestants, avoid this trap? And the answer is: We did it by pointing to the Waldenses, or Vaudois, a people who, hidden away in the Alps, kept alive a purer version of Christianity throughout the ages of papal domination. Chapter Four of Ellen White’s greatest work, “The Great Controversy” is devoted to the Waldenses, and explaining how they kept alive the true principles of the gospel during the middle ages. The very next chapter, Chapter Five, is about John Wycliffe, the man called “the morning star of the Reformation.” Hence, the Waldenses have been our spiritual bridge from the Reformation back to the apostolic era.
But John Nelson Darby took a different tack. He chose Judaism as his bridge back to the apostolic era. He decided that the problems with organized Christianity, some of which continued after the Reformation and manifested in the Church of England’s low spiritual condition during the 18th and early 19th centuries, were because the biblical promises were never really about the church, but applied to the Jews. Darby rejected the Church of England, founded Dispensationalism, and was among the founders of a new denomination, the Plymouth Brethren. As our narrator states:
During his day Darby was frustrated with the established Anglican Church and its perceived spiritual deadness, and partly as a response to what he saw as the failure of institutional Christianity, or organized religion, he developed his dispensationalist system.
In Darby’s view, if the visible church had become so corrupted and spiritually dead, Darby reasoned that maybe God’s true plan was operating on a different path or plan altogether. Rather than the historical view of seeing the church as the culmination and fulfillment of God’s promises to Israel, Darby argued that what he called the “church age” was simply a temporary interlude, or a parenthetical gap or interruption, in God’s plan for ethnic Israel.
This idea was part of Darby’s broader dispensationalist system, which divided all of history into distinct periods called dispensations, where God supposedly dealt with humanity differently—the age of innocence, the age of law, the church age, and so on—and each dispensation has its own covenant and requirements.
And this framework did allow Darby to explain contemporary spiritual decline. The perceived failures of the church did not invalidate God’s promises, because those promises were never about the church in the first place. Instead, in his view, God would soon rapture—this is where we get the idea of the rapture from—away the true believers, ending the current dispensation, the church age, and then return to His original plan of working through the Jews, the ethnic descendants of Israel, culminating in Christ’s second coming and Christ ruling physically, seated on a throne in Jerusalem, for a thousand years.
I do not doubt that this accurately summarizes Darby’s reasoning process, but it also reflects a false picture of, and an abysmal naivety about, Judaism. From the beginning of the dispensationalist movement, the deluded Christians promoting this false theology have cherished a romanticized idea of Judaism, in which the Jews are forever spiritually where they were during the earlier years of the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon, before absolute power and polygamous marriages corrupted those kings.
This is why I maintain that the real task facing any opponent of Dispensationalism and “Christian Zionism” is not explaining what Scripture teaches, which is quite straightforward, but rather exploding the ludicrously naive view of Judaism held by American evangelicals. This is why I’ve already done a chapter on the Talmud, which is the authoritative document for Judaism, and talked about some of the history of Judaism, including the Sabbatai Zevi, and pervasive practice of Kabbalistic magic/mysticism in religious Judaism.
No one who is familiar with the post-biblical history of Judaism, starting with their astonishingly violent rage during the three Jewish wars, would ever imagine that the Jews are a suitable bridge between the apostolic era and the Reformation, or that the Jews’ Christ-rejecting religion is a divinely sanctioned alternative path to salvation.
I’ve already written far to much by way of introduction, so I will briefly summarize the rest of the video:
Darby’s Dispensationalism was taken up by C.I. Scofield.
Scofield emphasized a Jewish return to Palestine even more prominently than Darby had done.
The Oxford University Press agreed to publish the annotated Bible written by a nobody with serious criminal problems, no theological training, and no previously published successful books.
Even before Scofield’s Bible was published, Scofield seemed to have an unlimited living and travel budget, going to Europe several times in the period between 1901 and 1909.
Scofield’s Bible was published in 1909, and became hugely successful, selling millions of copies.
The Balfour Declaration of 1917, expressing British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine, increased confidence in Dispensationalism.
The establishment of Israel as a Jewish state in 1948 further bolstered confidence in Dispensationalism.
The mainline Protestant churches firmly rejected Dispensationalism, but by the 1960s the liberalism that their seminaries had embraced in the 1920s began to ruin these churches; they shrank rapidly, and today are but a faint shadow of the great institutions they had been in 1950.
The implosion of mainline Protestantism meant that the evangelical churches, which had embraced the Scofield Bible and Dispensationalism, were the dominant influence in American Christianity.
The Six Day War of 1967 ended with Israel in control of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. It was now conceivable that a Third Temple could be constructed, as Dispensationalism predicts. 1967 was a bigger boost to Dispensationalism than 1917 and 1948 combined. A new edition of the Scofield Bible was issued in 1967.
Hal Lindsay’s 1970 book, “The Late Great Planet Earth,” promoting a Dispensationalist eschatology, was a huge hit, selling over 28 million copies. It was featured on television shows and made into a successful documentary movie narrated by Orson Welles.
Between 1995 and 2007, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins wrote a series of novels based upon Dispensationalist doctrines such as the secret rapture. This series, which eventually swelled to 16 books over the course of 13 years, sold 65 million copies, and led to the production of six movies.
Dispensationalism now appears to be a completely unstoppable religio-cultural force in America, a runaway freight train. But I think this is about to change.